North Carolina State taking lots of futures action

LAS VEGAS -- The college basketball season tips off Friday in, of all places, Rheinland, Germany, with No. 14 Michigan State taking on Connecticut.

No. 1 Indiana is also in action on Friday, taking on Bryant. Odds are not typically offered on games involving Bryant, but some Las Vegas books are posting these contest on the "extra game added" board.

The Hoosiers are currently the 9-to-2 favorite to win the National Championship, according to odds posted by the LVH Super Book.

Indiana returns all five starters from last season’s squad, including 7-foot center Cody Zeller, and are the preseason No. 1 for the first time since Bobby Knight’s 1979-80 squad led by Isiah Thomas.

“The most tickets written and money taken on the college basketball futures have been on Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan and N.C. State,“ said LVH assistant manager Jeff Sherman.

No. 2 Louisville is 7-to-1, and No. 3 Kentucky is 12-to-1 to win the national title in April. This is the fifth time that the top basketball schools from the Kentuckiana region have all been ranked in the preseason top-10, but the first time since the 1982-83 season.

No. 5 Michigan is currently 20-to-1, and No. 6 N.C. State, a team that has seen lots of action, is 12-to-1.

“We’ve seen the most action overall on N.C. State,” said Sherman. “We opened them at 50-to-1, and right now, they are by far our biggest liability.“

Another team that has seen its fair share of action is UNLV, which boasts one of the best recruiting classes in school history.

“We opened UNLV at 60-to-1 right after last season’s tournament, before they started signing all those top recruits, and they have been dropped to 25-to-1,” Sherman said.

The Rebels bring back starters Mike Moser and Anthony Marshall and have added Pittsburgh transfer Khem Birch, along with the top recruits of Anthony Bennett and Katin Reinhardt.

Heres’ a look at the LVH’s current odds to win this season’s college basketball championship:

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